Life
Bridge
My plan this week was to write wittily, but modestly, about our rise from the bowels of relegation after the…
Sanjuro
In Kurosawa’s samurai warrior classic Sanjuro, the hero, a wandering Ronin played by Toshiro Mifune, ends the film in a…
No. 292
White to play. This position is from Anand-Ding Liren, Alekhine Memorial, Paris 2013. White’s next destroyed the already compromised black…
Pet project
In Competition 2823 you were invited to submit a school essay or poem written at the age of eight by…
2139: Separated
Nine unclued lights can be separated into three groups; each group consists of three definitions of one of three words…
To 2136: Howdunit
Six of the unclued entries contained the Cluedo character surnames; the remaining unclued entries were therefore a murder weapon and…
Hunt saboteurs
I love The Spectator’s Parliamentarian of the Year Awards. On the face of it, they’re a great advertisement for just…
Dave
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All change at the top
In sport, as in life, you just don’t know where you stand any more. Look at the Premier League: no…
Dear Mary
Q. Walking at a local beauty spot the other day, I passed a handsome young man. We exchanged a few…
French revival
Boulestin is a pretty restaurant on St James’s Street, between the posh fag shop (Davidoff) and the old palace, which…
Believe
‘Believe in Magic & Sparkle,’ says the Marks & Spencer television Christmas advertisement. The phrase is meant to suggest the…
French revival
Boulestin is a pretty restaurant on St James’s Street, between the posh fag shop (Davidoff) and the old palace, which…
All change at the top
In sport, as in life, you just don’t know where you stand any more. Look at the Premier League: no…
Wild life
As I write this, my hands are seared and bruised from holding a hot iron after branding our cattle. We…
High life
I suppose the secret of death is to choose not to expire the same day as famous people. I read…
Low life
In the Spar shop I overheard someone talking anxiously to the woman on the till about an approaching ‘hurricane’. I…
Real life
Like the heroine in Stephen King’s The Tommyknockers, I stood in front of it with my mouth open in awe.…
Long life
I was in Nottingham last Sunday to address university students about journalism. The occasion was a one-day ‘media conference’ organised…
The day of fallers
On a grey October morning, along a Berkshire lane leading up to the Ridgeway amid fields stuffed with pheasant, 30…
Bridge
Bridge is a great leveller: at some point, it makes fools of us all. As a result, it’s probably best…
Next generation
Magnus Carlsen’s world title challenge to Vishy Anand commences on Saturday 9 November and continues to the end of this month.…
No. 291
White to play. This position is from Karpov v. Korchnoi, Merano 1981. White’s next destroyed the black position. What did…
Shakespeare does Dallas
In Competition 2822 you were invited to submit an extract from a scene from a contemporary soap opera (television or…
2138: Hundred centimes
The unclued lights, across and down respectively, are of a kind, all verifiable in Chambers. Across 4 Single…
